Case Studies

Quick Facts:

Founded: 2017
Annual Revenue: Under $5M
Team Size: 16 FTE
Industry: Branding and Creative Agency

Situation

Next Creative, a branding and creative agency based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, started in 2017 with four employees and a vision to help top-tier brands stand apart in their markets.

Through organic growth and a strategic acquisition in 2020, they more than doubled their team, growing from seven to 18 employees.

Despite their growth and success in landing high-profile clients, they faced mounting challenges.

Their operational structure wasn’t keeping pace with the business expansion, resulting in overworked teams, inconsistent profitability, and a lack of financial clarity.

Struggle

As Next Creative continued to grow, their success brought operational challenges that threatened long-term sustainability. The rapid expansion, fueled by organic growth and a strategic acquisition, meant that the team was juggling multiple high-profile projects while trying to maintain the level of service clients expected.

However, behind the scenes, there was a growing disconnect between financial and operational data.

Disconnected Data: Metrics from Harvest and QuickBooks weren’t aligned, leading to inconsistent decisions.
Overworked Teams: Growth without streamlined processes caused stress and inefficiencies.
Inconsistent Profitability: Project results varied, but the team couldn’t pinpoint the cause.
Manual Processes: DIY spreadsheets slowed down decision-making and provided incomplete insights.

The disconnect between tools led to inefficiencies and confusion. Teams tracked hours but failed to link them to outcomes, limiting profitability. Despite efforts, they lacked clarity on project profitability, resource allocation, and client mix, leaving them overworked and unsure of how to scale profitably.

Kevin Dean, Director of Client Engagement, shared, “We’ve always had strong tools and clear systems in place—QuickBooks and Harvest for time tracking. But we lacked the acumen to connect financial data with operational data. A lot of our focus was on QuickBooks, which is retrospective and disconnected from project profitability.

We needed tools, guidance, and expertise—and ultimately found you to help us connect those dots.”

”

“One of our biggest challenges was getting everyone on the same page about the true outcomes of each project deliverable. Different team members interpreted things differently based on the tools they used, leading to a lack of clarity and difficult communication between teams.”

Rich Evenhouse, President/Partner @ Next Creative

Solution

Next Creative sought Parakeeto’s expertise to identify the root causes of their operational inefficiencies. Through an in-depth audit, stakeholder interviews, and data analysis, they uncovered critical gaps in project scoping, execution, and profitability tracking.

These gaps had led to issues like scope creep and unclear metrics that hindered their ability to allocate resources effectively. The collaborative process focused on practical improvements rather than replacing tools or adding more data.

Key findings included:

Delivery Margin: Setting prices without first assessing costs or expected margins.
Unclear Project Scoping: Teams were overservicing without realizing the financial impact.
Misaligned Utilization Expectations: Not all hours being worked were actually earning revenue.

Parakeeto provided a tailored action plan to address these issues, including:

Estimation Guidelines: Process and tooling for scoping and pricing work, providing clarity on planned margin.
Business Modeling: Understanding of delivery margin’s impact on the bottom line, and how to improve it by monitoring a handful of core metrics.
Forecasting: Guidance on the impact of steady utilization and proactively spotting issues.

This process allowed Next Creative to uncover gaps between project planning and execution, particularly regarding scope alignment and resource allocation.

Results

Next Creative shifted how they approached project scoping and profitability tracking, allowing them to prioritize high-impact projects and clients.

Internally, collaboration improved as teams gained clarity in understanding their performance and established a shared understanding of success metrics. This alignment reduced miscommunication and helped them proactively address potential issues.

Key Improvements:

Improved scoping: Better understanding of scoping and pricing to achieve a target margin, and the importance of tracking against the plan to prevent overservicing or scope creep.
Aligned teams: Clear metrics helped unify decision-making and improve communication between teams.
Improved visibility: Reduced reliance on financial data and statements, with new focus on operational data and leading indicators.

“We’ve gone from feeling like we were constantly playing catch-up to having a plan we can execute. The clarity has helped us track what matters and align the team around our profitability goals.”

Rich Evenhouse

President and Partner @Next Creative

Summary

Parakeeto’s collaboration with Next Creative helped the agency bridge critical gaps between financial visibility, project performance, and team alignment.

The firm’s unique challenges—including managing post-acquisition growth, aligning financial and operational metrics, and balancing team capacity—were addressed with actionable insights that brought clarity to their processes and empowered them to make better decisions.

With a newfound ability to connect project outcomes directly to financial performance, Next Creative gained confidence in its strategic planning and resource allocation. Instead of chasing sales volume, they can now focus on delivering high-impact projects while maintaining healthier margins and a more balanced workload for the team.

Is your agency ready for sustainable growth? Gain the clarity and alignment needed to help your team thrive by reaching out to Parakeeto.